PixelJunk Monsters
Last week, PixelJunk Monsters launched in North America too, and is now available for $9.99.
You can find some gameplay footage below, courtesy of NintenDaan:
Dragon Fantasy: The Black Tome of Ice
Choice Provisions and Muteki have announced that Dragon Fantasy: The Black Tome of Ice is coming to both Wii U and 3DS on May 26.
Dragon Fantasy: The Black Tome of Ice is a follow-up to Dragon Fantasy: The Volumes of Westeria, an RPG that came to both of Nintendo’s platforms last July.
Below you can find an overview of the game and a new trailer.
Join Ogden and the heroes of Westeria in this classic JRPG epic, Dragon Fantasy: The Black Tome of Ice. Travel through the frozen wastelands of Tundaria, experiencing action-packed battles without random encounters, using spatially aware Area-of-Effect attacks and power moves. Travel by pirate ship, defending against enemies in thrilling ship-to-ship rock monster combat! Defeat oncoming hordes of demons and huge bosses that threaten the entire world of Dragon Fantasy!
Dual Core
Gray Fin Studios’ Dual Core will be released on the Wii U eShop on May 26 in North America, with the European version following a bit later (likely a few weeks).
Over three years have passed since this one-man project started development, and it’s now finally finished.
Here’s an overview of the game, and a new trailer:
Dual Core is a vibrant, futuristic, “twin-stick” style, shooter, with a strong focus on local co-op multiplayer.
It’s 2147 and the human colony on Europa has suffered a terrible fate. Rebooting after hibernation, two super-intelligent AI cores awake to find themselves installed within a couple of old security drones. Their attempts to uncover what occurred may end up becoming a lower priority than merely surviving…
Lots of robots, lots of lasers, lots of aliens, lots of explosions! The numerous retro arcade influences are front and center, but spiced up with a colorful modern style, a generous helping of sci-fi intrigue, and a dash of RPG ELEMENTS!
Futuridium EP Deluxe
Futuridium EP Deluxe will be making its way to the Wii U eShop in Europe and North America on May 26, with a price point of €9.99 / $9.99.
You can find a trailer for the game below:
Rynn’s Adventure: Trouble in the Enchanted Forest
Rynn’s Adventure: Trouble in the Enchanted Forest by Arcane Four Studios is coming to the North American Wii U eShop on May 26, and will be sold for $9.99.
You can find a trailer showcasing the game below:
Nevermoor
Faustian Games has now announced it’s working on Nevermoor, “a 3v1 multiplayer, couch-party game” that is planned for Wii U. We don’t have too many details yet, but it features three players hunting down a fourth before he massacres the town as a Werewolf.
You can find an alpha teaser trailer for the game below:
Chasm and Mages of Mystralia
Dan Adelman, formally Nintendo of America’s head of digital content and development, left the company back in 2014, and went on to work with Tom Happ on Axiom Verge.
While Adelman is still occupied with Axiom Verge, he’s also involved with two other projects: Chasm and Mages of Mystralia. On one hand, Chasm seems to be coming to Nintendo platforms sooner or later, with Adelman mentioning that the team would love to see a release there “as quickly as possible”. On the other hand, Mages of Mystralia’s hasn’t been confirmed for any specific platforms, but Adelman said “suffice it to say I keep my old friends at Nintendo up to speed on the game’s development progress”, so maybe Nintendo platforms are a possibility.
Here’s what Adelman has to share about both games:
I’m working on 3 games right now. First, of course, is Axiom Verge! The next game that will be coming out is Chasm. Like Axiom Verge, Chasm is a Metroidvania-style game, but the similarities end there. To the extent that Axiom Verge is more Metroid-like, Chasm is more akin to Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, in that it has a bigger focus on melee combat, RPG-style character development, and gear that you can equip. But also, like Axiom Verge, comparisons to its inspiration can only go so far, because there are a lot of things that Chasm does that make it quite different from anything else out there. For example, the world map is procedurally generated, so the game will have nearly infinite replayability. Right now it’s targeted for a PC and PS4 launch for technical reasons, but we’d love to bring it to Nintendo platforms as quickly as possible.
The third game I’m working on is called Mages of Mystralia, which I think is most easily described as Harry Potter meets Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. In it, you play as a girl named Zia who discovers she has magic abilities. Magic has been outlawed, so she goes into exile to master the ways of magic and learn how to design her own spells. She crafts spells to fight enemies as well as solve environmental puzzles along the way. The story is being written by legendary fantasy author Ed Greenwood, so the gameplay and story should be equally compelling! We haven’t announced any platforms yet, but suffice it to say I keep my old friends at Nintendo up to speed on the game’s development progress.
SteamWorld Heist
Image & Form shared a release date for SteamWorld Heist on PlayStation platforms recently, but stated that the Wii U version remains in development. The studio says it’ll be made available “shortly after” it hits the PS4 and PS Vita.
Meanwhile, the latest “The Engine Room” episode from the studio contains an HD SteamWorld Heist trailer, as well as a look at how it compares to the 3DS version. You can watch it below:
Discovery
Noowanda has published a fourth video showcasing the first update for Discovery. Take a look at it below, to see some new materials and items in action.
FAST Racing Neo
The new update for FAST Racing Neo is now available. It should take around 124MB of space to download.
In terms of functionality, there’s now a mini map for all tracks, and Shin’en has improved loading speed for a number of the courses as well. Online, you can now choose a preferred speed league and stability has been improved.
SDK Paint
HullBreach Studios has released a new trailer for SDK Paint version 4, and also prepared an overview of the new features it includes. You can find both below:
We are so grateful for all the support from gamers over the past 18 months, so we wanted this grande finale before moving to SDK Spriter. For those new to SDK Paint: it’s a layer based art studio that supports painting, pixel art, filters, effects, and more. It doesn’t stop there, though. The extra features are what I am covering:
STENCILS: These are grayscale underlay images that can be traced to help create some amazing art. With this update, there are 25 new (free!) Stencils, including Renaissance Art, Post-Renaissance Art, Asian Art, and a Tomeling: Darkness Falls UV map. With the update, existing art can be loaded into the Painting screen after importing a Stencil, which makes continuing where you left off even easier!
GALLERIES: These are 3D raycasted rooms with the art hanging on the walls. They support several controller schemes and contain many shaders and effects. Now, all Galleries are 720P resolution with enhanced shaders – like depth-of-field – and gain selectable background music. 4 Galleries are included, and 12 more are available as DLC.
SLIDESHOWS: These are completely new to this version. They are animated transitions between existing art, with accompanying music. Speed and background color are customizable. 2 Slideshows are included, and 6 more are available as DLC. SHARING: Previously, this screen supported posting art to Miiverse™ in 2D or layer-expanded anaglyph 3D. Now, with this update, Miiverse gains stamps. Yet, the big new feature is the Online Gallery athttps://gallery.sdkpaint.com. This website lets artists post their art online with all layers intact. The art can be viewed in a variety of image formats, including the 3D MPO format on the Nintendo 3DS browser! Through this website, art will be able to import into several future Wii U games, including UCraft (NexisGames), HullBreach: Uncloaked, Tomeling: Darkness Falls, and U Match It! (all HullBreach Studios). Thank you, once again, for all your support! We hope you will enjoy v4 as much as we do!
Mekazoo
Gamereactor has published a new video with a few more minutes of Mekazoo gameplay footage. Check it out below:
Drop It: Block Paradise!
ZeNfA Productions recently shared a new couple of trailers for its indie game Drop It: Block Paradise!. You can find them below:
Reptilian Rebellion
Reptilian Rebellion is now out on the European Wii U eShop. You can take a look at the game via the video below:
Indie developers share Nintendo NX expectations
Nintendo has announced that the NX is coming on March 2017, but everyone is anxiously awaiting to see what Nintendo has in store because of the lack of details surrounding the system, which includes many developers.
GamesTM recently spoke with a few indie developers in its latest issue, to talk about the NX. The magazine caught up with Black Forest Games co-founder Adrian Goersch, DrinkBox co-founder and CEO Graham Smith, CTO Rebellion co-founder Chris Kingsley, and Zen Studios VP of publishing Mel Kirk.
GamesTM started the discussion by asking each developer how they’d like NX to improve upon Wii U as a platform to make games on. The developers responded with the following:
The Wii U was actually a great platform to develop on. With Guacamelee, having the second screen on the GamePad was a perfect place to put the game’s mini-map, and made the game a great fit for the platform. Having the ability to play games right on the controller itself was an amazing feature for times when someone else in the household was making use of the television. While this was never a problem for Drinkbox, I believe that the limited power of the system made it difficult for some third parties to bring their games from PS4/Xbox One to the Wii U, causing the system to have less than ideal third-party support. – Smith
In general, I’d like to see a console that has comparable or more power than PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, and with familiar input systems. For an independent like Rebellion, you want to support as many platforms as you can, because you want as many people to play your games as possible. As a developer, of course it’s exciting to work with completely new paradigms but we all have to consider the economic realities too. I’d like to see Nintendo putting in more effort to work with other third parties so that the NX isn’t just a great earner for Nintendo, but can be a great earner for everyone else. – Kingsley
Beside more power, which everyone assumes it will have, the main improvement we would like to see are on the side of the Nintendo submission processes, support and tools. Everyone who ever had to create a Wii U emanual knows what we are talking about. – Goersch
We are hopeful that whatever platform Nintendo makes takes steps towards the future in big ways. More horsepower, the integration of VR in some way, platform support for different business models, and an easier publishing process would all be very welcomed. The Wii U certainly posed challenges for developers on a lot of fronts, but Nintendo is a company that the development community will support as long as the opportunity exists. It is hard to be critical, so I hope the new platform paves the way for success for everyone over the course of its lifetime. – Kirk
All four developers were in agreement that having a strong Nintendo console is good for the industry, be it for the company’s history, risk-taking, competition, and uniqueness.
When it came to the topic of competing with Sony and Microsoft, Kingsley and Smith mentioned that doing so wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibility. Both developers cited past Nintendo home platforms, with Smith stating that “Nintendo has competed favourably with Sony and Micrososft in many of the previous generations of consoles”. On the other hand, Goersch said the point isn’t to compete, but to instead “offer something for your own target audience”. Kirk also brought up the following:
I don’t know enough to give a yes or no answer here. I do know that Nintendo is capable of creating some amazing, groundbreaking hardware that will get people excited and interested enough to at least consider a purchase. You know that Nintendo will bring their amazing games and franchises in a big way, and if they can get decent third-party support rolling then the games will be there as well. Things can change quickly; not so long ago everyone was saying consoles are dead and this generation would be a bust. Well, that couldn’t be further from the truth!
Last but not least, each of the developers was asked about what else they’d like to see from NX. They answered:
MK: I would like to see Nintendo once again genuinely engage with third-party developers. Sure Nintendo has the characters we love and always will, but in today’s climate you must support the development community in order to have a healthy ecosystem. I look forward to seeing how Nintendo does this on NX.
CK: I’d love to see NX become a platform that publishers and developers can rely on, so they can invest and make great games on NX right now and so they can keep on making great games for in the future.
GS: Simply that it has powerful enough specs to compete with the current generation of consoles. This might prove challenging if they have a handheld standalone component to the console, but I really hope they can pull it off!
AG: I would like to see fewer gadgets, and a button smashing-only Mario Party.
You can find all of the developers’ remarks in this month’s issue of GamesTM. Each one of them also talked about rumored/revealed things about the NX that excite them.